


in whatever way you’ll have me (i’m yours)

by tsunderestorm



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Gun Violence, M/M, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:02:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25611772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsunderestorm/pseuds/tsunderestorm
Summary: “You’re mine,” Tseng repeats, incredulous, tasting the wordmineon his tongue.Rufus repeats years-old words, an echo of Tseng’s promise: “I’m yours, in whatever way you’ll have me.”
Relationships: Rufus Shinra/Tseng
Comments: 16
Kudos: 71





	in whatever way you’ll have me (i’m yours)

**Author's Note:**

> My partner gave me the prompt "Rufus and Tseng, 'I'm yours, in whatever way you'll have me'" and it turned into this: a sort of canon-divergent AU where Rufus and Tseng assassinate President Shinra in Rufus’ bid for power, which is also a look at their relationship through the years and how it has changed. I chose to use their canonical ages from Remake canon because, as anyone who has read my fics will know, I am a sucker for a good friends to lovers set-up... these two being the same age lines that up _so_ perfectly.
> 
> All we know about Tseng is that he "has been in service since he was young", so how I'm choosing to interpret that (and for my headcanons in general) is: President Shinra kidnapped him from Wutai as tensions were building, strong-armed his parents, or otherwise coerced Tseng into joining Shinra as a kid and has held it over his head ever since as he's served Rufus through the years.
> 
> Long story short, there's a lot of headcanon in this. If you're here to nitpick canon, this isn't a fic for you. :) I had originally planned this as a more expansive and lengthy project, but if I pick at it any more, I'm worried that I'll end up hating it.
> 
> And now, the important stuff: Content warning for some mentions of canon-typical anti-Wutai racism, brief mentions of physical abuse, and the briefest, blink-and-you'll-miss-it implication of sexual abuse. While I left their ages ambiguous and relied more heavily on years for showing the progression of time, they are having sex at 17-18 which may not be everyone's cup of tea. I did not feel it was "enough" to warrant the Underage tag. Additionally, if a very obvious power imbalance at any point in a relationship (in the case of this fic, in the beginning) makes you uncomfortable, proceed with caution. I do show that their relationship progresses to one where they are on equal footing, but still. Curate tour experience. **I do NOT condone President Shinra’s (and at first, Rufus’) treatment of Tseng as more object than person. Writing something ≠ supporting it.**

**~1987**

President Shinra returns from Wutai flanked by his strongest general, head held high. Just the SOLDIER’S presence extolls Shinra’s victory over the Eastern continent, a living propaganda poster as he strides silently beside Rufus’ father. Sephiroth’s gleaming silver hair is a victory banner, lifted by the breeze blowing in off of the harbor while Rufus’ own hair is crusted with salt. He looks perfect, not a hair out of place, something to be proud of, and Rufus looks like a messy child. It’s no wonder, he thinks acidly, that his father is more proud of the weapon than the heir. 

Under the midday sun, he’s sweating trapped in the stuffy suit that his nanny had insisted upon. She had cooed over his poorly-fitting suit and absurd bow tie (he prefers neckties, something the simpering woman can’t get through her head) until he’d stopped complaining simply to shut her up. If he’d had to hear anything more about “how happy your father will be to see you so smartly dressed” he probably would have been sick.

His father has been gone for two weeks at this point, finishing up what Shinra’s news outlets refer to as “peace talks” with Wutai: the conditions of their surrender, the acceptance of Shinra superiority, and the understanding that although the Eastern continent reactor plan has been abandoned at present, it is not an impossibility. A constant threat that they will paint as directed, in lighting flattering to Shinra. Lowly second and third-class SOLDIER operatives will cut their teeth on Wutai’s rebels for years to come while the news portrays the occupation as philanthropy. Rufus knows how this works. 

He’s sure that his father, in all likelihood, probably doesn’t even appreciate the reminder that he has a son, let alone bear any desire to see said son the moment he sets foot back on Shinra property. Rufus would probably be better off in his suite of rooms with his devices and his books, Behind President Shinra, flanked by two of the austere, suit-clad men he’s dubbed The Turks, walks a boy. He looks to be Rufus’ age, probably Wutai, if the texture of his hair and his facial features and the President’s recent travels are any indication. He stands straight, acquiescent, but there is something there, something about his _presence_ , that seems defiant. Rufus watches in rapt fascination, reaching to pet the top of Darkstar’s head for something to do with his hands. 

“Rufus,” President Shinra says when he’s near enough, beckoning him forward and lowering himself to one knee on the tarmac beside the helicopter, “come closer.” 

Rufus steps forward, obedient. His heart swims in the vicinity of his throat. His father almost never calls him by name, and even rarer still is the fact that he beckons him to come to him. Rufus hasn’t been this close to his father in months. As always, he is searching, reaching, _hoping_ for just the tiniest hint of affection from his father, for a crumb of praise with which to sate the starvation for it that he’s known his entire life. 

“I’ve brought you something. Someone,” his father says, and with a sweeping gesture of his arm he indicates the boy who’d followed in his footsteps. A clearing of his throat, an inclination of his head, and one of the Turks steps up and shoves the boy between his shoulder blades. It sends him stumbling forward, beside Rufus’ father and close enough that Rufus himself could reach out and touch him. The boy catches himself, nimble, and steadies his stance as he moves to stand directly Rufus. His wrists are bound together, but Rufus can see that past the twin bands of metal cuffs his hands are clenched into fists. Anger, defiance, no hint of fear.

The boy raises his gaze, face level with his own, and Rufus is met with the prettiest eyes he’s ever seen. They’re like… garnets from the mythril mines, embers with flecks of warm amber, rich whiskey brown, oxblood red. Like the materia their company has grown rich off of but no, not the mako-blue of Sephiroth and his ilk, but more like… fire. There is defiance, there. Hatred. It is more emotion that Rufus has ever seen aimed in his direction, and it is exhilarating. 

“Fa - “ Rufus starts, then catches himself. “Sir?” 

President Shinra nods his approval, and Rufus knows he’s made the right decision in correcting his mistake. “He’ll live in Midgar now. He’s yours. A playmate or, whatever you need. Apparently he was someone special in Wutai. A distant relation to that Kisaragi family that’s in power, or something. I thought you might like a companion. A servant… maybe a toy.” 

The boy’s eyes go wide for an instant, flicking incredulously to the President before he catches himself, hardens the mask he’s adorned his face with. Then, those eyes harden again, boring into Rufus’ and if looks could kill, this Wutai boy would be the death of him. No one looks at Rufus that way. No one would _dare_. 

“Be polite, you,” President Shinra barks, and Rufus notices immediately that the boy doesn’t tremble under the booming of his father’s voice. Jealousy and awe fight for center stage in his mind, a theater of thoughts. “Introduce yourself.” 

“I am called Tseng,” the boy says, his Midgar language only lightly accented.

“Yes, that’s right. Tseng,” the President says, waving his hand as he’s already standing up to walk off, turning to Rufus and assuring, “but you can call him by whatever name pleases you. He’s yours, now.”

President Shinra leaves them standing on Junon’s helipad: no Turks, not even any lowly Public Security officers, no supervision. Just Rufus, Darkstar, and this… Tseng. This boy, who is apparently his. 

(Years later, President Shinra will come to realize that on that day, he presented to Rufus his most powerful weapon.)

When his father’s retreating back has disappeared through a door on the side of the facility, Rufus returns his attention to his companion. 

“Tseng, was it?” he asks with a smile as he pulls out his pocket knife and cuts the boy’s bindings, watching curiously as he rubs his red, raw wrists. His eyes never leave Rufus, watching him, appraising him. “I’ll let you out of those. If you attack me, Darkstar will tear out your throat. Run, and we will take you down.”

Tseng looks at the beast crouched beside the boy called Rufus: a puppy, but not. Its body is a mottled blue-black, webs of veins and capillaries starkly visible beneath the too-taut surface of its skin. It has eyes of hateful crimson and watery pupils, fangs too big for its mouth and a strange appendage on its back, extending up and behind, parallel to its body like a bizarre sort of tentacle. A simple gesture of Rufus’ hand calls it to its feet and a low growl sounds above the screech of gulls in the harbor and the deafening roar of foghorns on the ships. The dulcet tones of Junon, Tseng supposes: seagulls, the sounds of imperial industry, and the growl of Rufus’ pet hellspawn.

“Are we understood?” Rufus asks, looking positively cherubic as he tilts his head, watching Tseng appraise his beast like a proud parent. 

“Understood,” Tseng says, and then, carefully, “...sir.”

Rufus claps his hands together gleefully, turning on his heel and following in his father’s footsteps. With a glance over his shoulder and a click of his tongue, he beckons to be followed.

The command is as much for Tseng as it is for Darkstar.

**~1990**

To call Rufus a _tyrant_ would be kind. Even as a preteen he is already a force to be reckoned with: demanding, unforgiving, too powerful for his own good. Tseng has drawn the unlucky lot in this life of being Rufus’... something or other. Truthfully, he isn’t sure - he’s been in Midgar for three years, now, and beyond Rufus referring to him in terms of ownership, he’s not sure if he has an official purpose. He supposes Rufus likes him, or he would have been discarded.

To wonder if Tseng likes Rufus is useless. Does the captive like the captor?

( _Sometimes_.)

The thing about Rufus, though: he doesn’t need to be liked. He doesn’t even want it, Tseng thinks, and if he does want it he does a piss-poor job of expressing it. No, Rufus Shinra, even at the tender age of twelve, needs to be _feared_. Feared by the teachers at his stuffy private academy reserved for only the children of Midgar’s elite, the piano instructor his father has hired to ensure that Rufus’ skills are well-rounded, the bodyguards assigned to him… everyone, except Tseng: the one person who doesn’t fear him. Who _won’t_.

“Are you my friend?” Rufus asks. He’s sprawled against the arm of a couch, thumbing through a book, turning the pages with a lazy, halfhearted interest. Tseng says nothing, only tugs at the stiff collar of the shirt he’s been given. He’s been allowed to attend school with Rufus (a precursor, he imagines, to the fact that he’ll spend the rest of his life one step behind the future president) and his uniform is starch-stiff, uncomfortable. When he doesn’t provide a response quickly enough for Rufus’ liking, the boy sits up, impatiently prompting, “Well, are you?”

“I am what you need me to be,” Tseng answers from his place kneeling on the floor, writing a summary of the reading one of their teachers had assigned. Obedient, robotic, more for the sake of self-preservation than any kind of loyalty. “I am yours, in whatever way you’ll have me.”

Rufus seems to ponder that for a moment, blue eyes going hard, calculating. “I’ll have you as a friend,” he announces once he’s decided. “I’ve never had a friend. Father says I don’t _need_ friends, that all a Shinra needs is power.”

“Hmm,” Tseng murmurs, noncommittal. He’s entirely sure that President Shinra _has_ said that, and in a way, he’s right - a Shinra needs no one but the Company they’ve built, the money they hoard and the mako they control. But people are powerful, and it’s apparent that Rufus has realized that. Tseng is no fool, though - he’s seen what happens to people who anger the Shinra leader. Unexplained disappearances, suspicious deaths, and even if he isn’t sure _where_ the chips of his life have fallen, he’s sure that he doesn’t want to lose it for telling Rufus Shinra that his father is wrong. 

Rufus studies him carefully, like he’s waiting for a reaction, one that Tseng doesn’t feel like giving. He knows that he should be obedient, knows that Shinra holds his life in its hands, that to displease Rufus is to sign his death certificate: to tie his noose, to slit his throat, to step willingly in front of the bullet. He knows these things, and yet it’s the small acts of defiance that make him feel alive. He’s grasping at straws, struggling to keep his head above the water it seems Rufus is always holding him under and so he doesn’t honor Rufus’ expectations.

At least, not until Rufus shrugs and proclaims, “I think he’s full of shit.”

Tseng’s head jerks up from his notepad to level his gaze with Rufus’, whose mouth turns up into a smile. It’s pleased, _triumphant_ even, and Tseng knows that he’s given the reaction that Rufus wanted.

Still, Tseng asks, cautiously, distrustful. Treading with the lightest and most silent of steps. “Sir…?”

“Did you think I was completely loyal to my father?” Rufus asks, closing his book with a snap as he tips his head back to laugh. “Let me guess: you thought that being with me would mean that every mistake you made would be reported directly to him? Did you think that this was some kind of a test before you were fed to the dogs? Oh, Tseng…”

Tseng is caught off-guard. He hasn’t said it aloud and doesn’t especially want to now, but for most of his years in Midgar he’s been quite certain that was the case. He’s heard rumors, whispered talk of what had happened to the last playmate Rufus had taken a liking to, the tutor who had condescended to Rufus one too many times and ended up penniless, the nanny who had _dared_ to swat his dog’s flank with a rolled-up copy of the newspaper and was never heard from again. He moves through every day half-expecting to be tossed into a mako reactor.

He takes a deep breath, choosing his next words carefully. “I had my fears that my time in Midgar would not be… extensive.”

Rufus laughs, like the notion is the silliest thing he’s ever heard, like Tseng is foolish for even suggesting it. When he’s done laughing, when Tseng’s expression hasn’t changed, he clarifies: “I like you, Tseng. Midgar is your home!”

Tseng lets out a breath he feels like he’s been holding for years. He likes Rufus well enough, but still - affection that he’s half-resisted harboring and trust are two very different things. Rufus had, against Tseng’s wishes, won the former, and he’s shocked by how quickly he wins the latter.

“Everyone is my father’s,” Rufus says, “the company, the reactors, the executives - hell, Heidegger is so deep in my father’s pocket that he’s grown fat off the sustenance he finds there. What I need is someone who is _mine_.”

Tseng lets the words wash over him, rich with conviction. Rufus is young, but it’s obvious that his top-notch education and lineage have gifted him with a talent for persuasive oration to rival, and someday surpass, his father’s. 

“And you want… me, sir?”

Rufus shrugs, sliding one slim finger back between the pages of the book to open it to the page where he’d left off.

“You’re already mine,” he says, brokering no debate, and then, as an afterthought, “Come here, Tseng.”

The flutter in Tseng’s chest feels like a betrayal. To what? He’s not sure. To his homeland, to himself, to the fact that he’d told himself since he arrived in Midgar that he’d hate the Shinra line forever? Perhaps. But this? A boy saying _mine_? It makes him flush, and he moves to be closer to him. Rufus makes no move to give up his lazy sprawl across the narrow sofa, and so Tseng sits cross-legged on the ground before it, beside Darkstar.

“Aren’t you?” Rufus asks, transferring the book to his other hand so the one closest to Tseng can come out, touch his hair, thread his fingers through it. “Mine, that is.”

Tseng hates his traitorous heart for flipping when Rufus’ hands pet his hair. He’s taken to doing this, recently - small touches, innocuous yet possessive. Sometimes he holds Tseng’s wrist, innocent enough until index and middle fingers press hard on his pulse point, and sometimes when Rufus demands Tseng sit beside him on the piano bench as he practices he nudges him until their thighs are flush together, warm and solid. Touch-starved, hungry for the affection Tseng knows he doesn’t receive.

(That _neither_ of them receive. How are they supposed to find it anywhere else but each other?)

Tseng makes a vow, then. “I am yours, in whatever way you’ll have me.” 

This time, it’s out of loyalty.

**~1991**

Rufus is fourteen, and his father has sent him an array of weapons for his birthday in lieu of a celebration. The President can’t be bothered to make the journey from Midgar to the manor, not even for Rufus’ birthday. The present this year is a selection of guns for his rapidly-growing collection - in the case that is delivered to the manor’s doorstep there are rifles, a few antiquated revolvers, an array of pistols and a shotgun that Rufus can’t seem to stop trailing his fingers curiously up the barrel of. 

He says that his father’s absence doesn’t bother him. Just because he’s matured enough to grow cognizant of the fact that his father can’t be bothered with him doesn’t mean he’s grown out of being hurt that the only blood family he has doesn’t care. Rufus is aware that Tseng knows the truth, but lying comes as easily as breathing, and he dons the falsehoods like armor. Mercifully, the boy doesn’t say anything to the contrary, letting Rufus save his pride.

Rufus feels Tseng watching him, quietly appraising each gun as Rufus turns it this way and that in his hands. Tseng is familiar with most of them; some of them are ones he’s trained with, perfected at the shooting range when Rufus is occupied. In his grasp, guns are an extension of his arm, accessories to what is already a weapon, but in Rufus’ hands the guns are works of art. Beautiful in their danger. 

“Do you want to try?” Rufus asks, smiling when Tseng jerks his eyes to meet Rufus’. “You seem interested.”

Tseng picks up a pistol, same as the one he tends to favor at the range and raises it, takes aim and fires five shots into the crumbling facade behind Shinra Manor. The shots splinter brick and send decaying mortar tumbling to the ground,the dilapidated retaining wall a person, it would have been dead by the second shot. 

Rufus gapes at him, wide-eyed, and Tseng bows his head. “Sir,” murmured as he calmly sets the gun back down in the case. 

Rufus shakes his head, hefting a rifle into his grip, tilting his head to look through the sight at a row of foggy glass bottles he’s arranged on the fenceposts. 

“You never cease to amaze,” Rufus says, offering Tseng a grin before one of the bottles explodes in a shower of sparkling glass. “But I’m still the better shot, I think.”

**~1993**

“You’re Shinra property, now. Remember that,” President Shinra says, a painful reminder. “Shinra gave you a future. _I_ gave you a future. And we can take it away, if you’re… ungrateful.”

Tseng is grateful, in a way, but the meaning is clear. Nothing with Shinra is free - not the protection they provide to Midgar’s citizens, not the mako energy with which they power the city, and certainly not half a decade of charity from its President. 

He’s going on, something about how Rufus doesn’t know how to use Tseng correctly, but Tseng isn’t thinking about the President. Instead, he thinks of Rufus: of the fall of his soft blonde hair over his eyes, of the dazzling white of his smile, of the surprising tenderness in his touch. He thinks of their friendship, quietly blossoming into something more. He thinks of the reciprocity that has become commonplace with him as President Shinra only takes, takes, takes. 

**~1994**

Seventeen, and Tseng is a deadly weapon. 

He attends school with Rufus during the day: a private academy, stiff uniforms and endless rules, by the grace of the President’s generosity. Were he not so generous, he reminds him during their too-often meetings, Tseng would be discarded. (Had he not deemed Tseng to be a good investment, Tseng would be discarded.)

By night, he makes himself useful. 

He can question, torture, kill with impunity, and he wears the suit like he was born for it. Officially, he will be accepted into the Turks when he reaches adulthood. Unofficially, he’s already a member - their secret weapon. No one expects him. Not disgruntled former employees with thumb drives full of stolen secrets and wagging tongues, who see and hear nothing before Tseng is cleanly dispatching them with nary a sound. Not the Don’s lackeys when he leans in close and bats his lashes, deceptively demure and delicate before he has them laid at Corneo’s feet with throats slit, a message that even if they’re choosing to leave him alone, Shinra is still watching. Not the dissidents in need of silencing, AVALANCHE or not, who don’t see a single thing before the bullets rip through their skulls, shot straight and true from his sniper’s post in Midgar’s rooftops. 

“Where do you go to at night?” Rufus demands. “Don’t lie to me, Tseng.”

Tseng is not supposed to talk about the missions he carries out for the Company. He is not supposed to talk about the atrocities he’s already committed, the lives he’s taken, only supposed to live with the guilt eating away at his soul. Cleaving bits of it off one by one like pieces from the stone, sculpting him into the ideal that Shinra wants. Perhaps he was brought here for one purpose or another, but at some point he became the President’s. The Company’s, when all he wants to be is Rufus’.

Tseng chooses his words more carefully than he has been required to for years. “I have a particular set of skills that your father has requested I use to help ensure that the Shinra Company’s affairs are handled discreetly and effectively.”

Rufus scowls. “In plain language, Tseng.”

Tseng sighs. “Despite my age and origins, I am a skilled diplomat and persuasive spokesperson, who happens to be comfortable with getting my hands dirty when necessary. That is the formal explanation given for my premature induction into the General Affairs section’s investigation unit.”

Rufus sighs, and then smirks. “You’re a Turk,” he says, slowly. “You sneaking back in the door at three in the morning covered in blood, the secretive phone calls, all those trips to the 70th floor... it makes sense, now. I had suspected it, of course.”

Tseng sighs, swiping away a series of unimportant notifications from his phone. “I’m sorry, sir. I was under orders to be discreet.”

Rufus waves away his apology, unnecessary and unwanted. Leaning in, he cups Tseng’s chin in his hand, thumb rubbing over his lower lip. It sucks the air from Tseng’s lungs in the same way as a punch to the gut. 

“I won’t use you like that,” Rufus says. Tseng knows that he will, but it’s different when it’s Rufus. 

It’s different when it’s orders from Rufus, it’s different when he’s sneaking, killing, _bleeding_ for Rufus. 

~ **1995 - 1996**

“Do you like kissing me?” Rufus asks, leaning forward into Tseng’s space, all tousled hair and swollen lips. 

“Yes, sir,” Tseng answers, steadying his breathing. 

Rufus laughs; a low, smooth sound, “ _What_ do you like about kissing me?”

Tseng is silent. He thinks it should be obvious by now. The way Rufus kisses like a half-starved, feral creature, like Tseng is sunlight and Rufus has been imprisoned for years. The way Rufus wants him, _needs him_ , and grabs him like it.

“I’ll tell you what I like about kissing you,” Rufus says, baiting the hook, fingers gliding playfully up Tseng’s arm.

“You have always been the more talkative of the two of us,” Tseng sighs, teasing.

Rufus laughs. “I like putting my tongue in your mouth. I like sucking on yours when your tongue is in _my_ mouth. I like pulling on your hair and making you gasp, because even if you steel that face of yours I _know_ it hurts. I want it to hurt, just a little bit. I want you to feel me, I want you to think of me, of _this_ whenever I pull your hair.”

“Never cut your hair, do you understand me? I like it long. I like,” Rufus pauses, then, twirling a thick handful of Tseng’s hair around his fingers and into his fist, yanking him forward until the space between their hungry mouths is mere centimeters, “having something to _hold_.” 

Tseng, emboldened, closes the distance, glides his tongue along the seam of Rufus’ full lips, lets his hands wander from his lap to Rufus’ spread legs, gliding up and under the length of his leg beneath the immodestly draped sheet. Rufus’ thighs are still shaking under his fingers and he doesn’t have half of Tseng’s composure, breath hitching as Tseng’s fingers move feather-light over his skin. 

“I like how you’ve learned to grab my cock the minute we start kissing,” Rufus praises, singing them, lavishing them on him, tiny luxuries: “so obedient, so well trained! Even though we just finished, you already want more!”

Tseng responds by doing just that, curling his hand around Rufus’ cock, thumb swiping across the wet head of it in what has become a very practiced gesture. He’s already half-hard again, maybe even never went soft. Tseng squeezes, lips curving into a smile against Rufus’, sighing into the kiss. Rufus pulls back too soon, lips wet and swollen, looking up at Tseng like he wants to be devoured.

“I like kissing you while my cock is inside of you, Tseng, do you know that? I like, _ah_ , when you kiss me when your cock is inside of me,” Rufus shudders, panting as his hips buck, eager to fuck into the tight hold of Tseng’s fist. “I like feeling every moan that you try to hide from me. If you won’t give them to me, I’ll _take them_.”

“I’ll give them to you, sir,” Tseng says, quietly, correcting himself as an afterthought: “...Rufus.” 

Rufus’ face lights up. “Yes, perfect, Tseng. You give them to me, and I’ll give mine to you.”

He pauses, then, hands behind him, relaxing back on them as he juts his hips forward, presses his cock more eagerly into Tseng’s skilled grip. “Aren’t I yours?”

Tseng pauses before he can catch himself. Everyone always praises him - _so mature, so calm, so collected_ \- but they don’t see the side that he allows for Rufus. The side that can be disarmed with a kind word. He knows the gravity of what Rufus has said, and he lets it wash over him, clutches it tight and locks it in his heart. To belong to Rufus Shinra is to be one of many possessions, it seems, but to be the one to whom Rufus Shinra belongs… 

“You’re mine,” Tseng repeats, incredulous, tasting the word _mine_ on his tongue.

Rufus repeats years-old words, an echo of Tseng’s promise: “I’m yours, in whatever way you’ll have me.”

**~1996**

Rufus is nineteen when he attends his first board meeting. Tedious, as always. Scarlet is reclined on a couch instead of in her high-backed chair, resting her feet on that week’s hapless security officer who’d fallen into her trap. Heidegger is extolling one of his new toys’ specs, boisterous as ever. Rufus is sitting beside his father, obviously bored. Reeve can barely get a word in edgewise despite a folder full of plans in need of approval on the table before him, and Hojo is playing with something indiscernible in a test tube. Shuddering, Tseng turns his attention back to his duty: guarding the door, ensuring that he can hear no one listening outside it, that no one dares to try and come in to interrupt Shinra’s most important.

The President suggests something, something Tseng doesn’t even catch, and when Rufus scoffs, “Father, you can’t _honestly_ think that will work,” President Shinra’s hand comes up and slaps him so hard across the mouth that Rufus turns, spitting blood out onto the polished tabletop. The room goes silent. Reeve wrings his hands and studies his cufflinks, pretending not to see, and Scarlet leans forward with such obvious interest that it’s sickening. Heidegger maintains his composure for enough time to maintain a semblance of tact before his obnoxious horse laugh is booming out again. “I guess you learned a lesson there, boy!”

Tseng, to his credit, does not flinch, does not rush to Rufus’ aid even though he wants to. Cowed, Rufus sits back in his seat with a swollen lip and a blood-stained, monogrammed handkerchief clutched in his clenched fist. 

Through gritted teeth, he offers an apology: “Forgive me, sir.” He’s sullen and silent the rest of the meeting, the fact that he stays in the room a testament only to his spite and willpower than any obedience, any hint at contrition. 

Later, in Rufus’ apartment Tseng can comfort him.

“Your pride hurts more than your face, doesn’t it, sir?” Tseng asks, dabbing a cool, damp rag at Rufus’ bruised cheek and swollen mouth.

“You know you’re right,” Rufus grouses, “although it’s hard to imagine anything hurting more than my face at this point.”

Tseng leans in, eyes dark, sliding into Rufus’ lap and pressing two pain pills into his pouting mouth. His thumb runs tenderly over the bow of his split lip before he’s bringing a bottle of water up to wash down the pills, his mouth finding the hollow of Rufus’ throat. His offer, murmured quiet and concise against his skin: “Allow me to heal both.” 

The pain pills, the potion, and the healing materia in Tseng’s capable hands take the ache out of his face, calm the angry purple-red of his bruise and soothe the headache he’s had for hours, stitch together the cut where his father’s ring had sliced his lip open. It is Tseng himself, though, who heals his soul. The only tender touch that Rufus has ever known. The man’s mere presence; in his lap, in his arms, wholly and entirely _his_ ; gives him back the pride his father tried to steal from him. 

A moment of humility, though, so as not to be the pride before a fall: “I don’t know what I would do without you, Tseng.”

A confession, stripped bare of bravado. “Mine,” he whispers against Tseng’s lips. 

“I am yours, sir,” Tseng says, holding in his hands the face that had only moments before been a mess of humiliation and hurt, now confident and composed again as he finishes a vow. “In whatever way you’ll have me.”

**~1997**

Tseng is twenty when President Shinra summons him to the 70th floor, to the cold, wide emptiness that is the space before his desk. He thinks that his shoes must have worn grooves in the floor with how much he’s been standing here, how hard he’s been working to make sure that his future is assured. Nineteen when the President tells him, “Report to me everything out of the ordinary that Rufus does, and we will deal with him accordingly,” and and offers no elaboration before waving him away. Tseng offers a brief bow, turning to leave the room and making a decision that he knows, deep down, he made years ago:

His devotion is a precious thing, staunch and unrelenting. It is a precious jewel mined from deep inside the hardened stone of his heart, and he will not share it with President Shinra. His loyalty is Rufus’, the same way Rufus’ is his, and never again will he give more attention, more skill, more loyalty than required to the father when it’s the son that he wants to follow. 

**~1998**

The first time that Rufus voices his plans aloud, he is twenty-one. It’s a test of Tseng’s loyalty, the most dramatic way that Rufus can think of to make his intentions known. Fitting, honestly. They are curled up on the couch, Tseng’s head tucked beneath Rufus’ chin. Tseng is held too tightly in his arms to move without a fight, and Rufus is too comfortable to allow him to, and so his newest designer trench coat is draped over the both of them, a shield against the uncharacteristic cold of the evening. 

“You’d do anything I asked, wouldn’t you?” Rufus asks, twirling a strand of Tseng’s hair around his finger and tugging, delighting in the way Tseng’s eyes snap open immediately to look at him.

Tseng stifles a yawn when he ascertains that there is no immediate issue and allows his eyes to close again, lashes dark against his high, handsome cheeks as he rests his head against Rufus’ arm curled around him. “Yes, Rufus. I know that you know that.”

“Then I want you to answer one question,” Rufus orders, turning his head so that his cheek rests atop Tseng’s head. The softness of his hair is a comfort against his cheek, silky-smooth and luxurious, smelling like cedarwood and lavender. “How many different ways could my father die?”

To his credit, Tseng barely tenses. He shifts, turning so he can look up at Rufus, so he can gauge his intent as he looks down at him. 

Tseng humors him, holding up a hand. “A helicopter accident: a negligent pilot or an improperly inspected machine. A SOLDIER, scarred by the experiments that made them, gone rogue and resentful, running him through on a sword. A member of his inner circle making a grab for power… one of the executives, perhaps, injecting him with enough mako to overdose?” Tseng details, raising a finger for each possible demise. Pausing, he looks up, locking eyes with Rufus and evaluating what he finds there: determination, resolve, even amusement. 

Mouth turning up into a smile, Tseng clasps a hand over Rufus’ forearm, fingertips gliding over the buttons on the cuff of his sleeve. “A member of his elite force turning the very gun that’s supposed to protect him aimed between his eyes, instead?”

Rufus lets the words wash over him for a moment before he laughs, kissing the top of Tseng’s head before a hand threads through his hair, tugging him back in close: Tseng’s cheek to his chest, possessive. 

“So many possibilities!” he laughs, like they’ve just discussed the weather, rather than the death of the most powerful man on Gaia. “That man had better watch himself.”

And just like that, it’s decided. Resolutely, wordlessly. It isn’t treason if they don’t speak it aloud. It isn’t treason if the only evidence of their plot lives on as breaths in each other’s lungs.

~ **1999 - 2001**

Years pass. Rufus makes one or two half-hearted attempts on the President’s life, one thwarted by Tseng himself. 

Appearances, after all. 

Tseng listens to the President detail each of Rufus’ failings as Tseng reports his actions, and imagines a day when his brains will be splattered across the black marble floor. 

**~2002**

They’re in Junon when Rufus makes it official. The site of their very first meeting over a decade ago, due to circumstance rather than sentimentality. Rufus’ continued misbehavior has him on house arrest at the Turks’ compound, has Tseng visiting when he can. There’s a storm roaring outside, wind lashing the thick, unbreakable safety glass with torrents of rain and inside, there is only them: Rufus, with his head in Tseng’s lap, with fingers brushing his hair back, soothing. It’s still damp from the bath, cool against Tseng’s fingers. Rufus looks up at him, this man that he has: his ally, his advocate, his lover, his partner in crime. His past, present, and future. 

“I don’t know how much more I can take of this,” Rufus whines, despite knowing that he made his bed and that he must lie in it, and on most nights, do so without Tseng. “Can we kill the old man yet?”

“Some day, the company will be yours,” Tseng says patiently. 

“Some day, the company will be mine,” Rufus repeats, gliding his fingers between Tseng’s and lacing them tight. “I’ll be President, and you’ll be Vice President.”

“An important title, for sure,” Tseng says, pulling their hands apart only to run his finger along Rufus’ heart line. It’s a sweet, simple gesture, one that makes him shiver when his hands are bare of his gloves. 

Rufus watches Tseng’s finger glide along his palm, echoing the motion with his free hand on Tseng’s forearm. “Yes, well, as much as I’m not one for tradition, I figured it might be pragmatic to have a Shinra in the two topmost positions of the company.”

“Certainly,” Tseng agrees, pausing when Rufus sits up, reaching to where his things are draped haphazard across the back of the couch to rifle around in the deep pockets of his abalone-colored coat. What he pulls out is a velvetine oxblood box, undeniably a ring. Inside is a cushion-cut diamond, the stone sitting in a beautiful twining cathedral that arches up from the band. 

“Logical,” Tseng praises as he looks down at what is indisputably an engagement ring, “and sure to make your father roll in his grave.”

There is no need to say “ _yes_ ” because there is no question. There never has been, and there never will be, not when he’s been telling Rufus for years that he’s here, he’s his. Not when Rufus is his in turn.

“I’m yours, in whatever way you’ll have me,” Tseng says as Rufus slides ring snug on his finger, a perfect fit.

“I know,” Rufus assures. “I’ll have you as a husband.”

**~2006**

Rufus is all grown up, and he’s playing with his food before he eats it. He has his father tied to his high-backed executive chair in his gleaming 70th floor office, eating colorful candies from the dish on his desk while the man squirms. Tseng is beside him, gun trained directly against the President’s temple. A threat. A promise.

“You,” President Shinra spits in Tseng’s direction, struggling against the bonds that he has no hope of escaping. “I gave you a life, a chance at greatness outside of that pathetic, crumbling nation - “

Tseng shakes his head, fingers the trigger tentatively to see the sheen of panicked sweat trickle down the President’s wrinkled temple in response. “You ripped me from my home and expected me to be grateful,” Tseng says, eyes flicking to Rufus as he says, “and in a way, I am. I found a new home.”

“Bitches are supposed to be obedient.” President Shinra narrows his eyes. Rufus cracks him across the mouth with the butt of his newest toy: a gleaming gun, engraved with the symbology he’s chosen for himself: mandragora twining sinuously, wings coiled in promise, his words. From beneath the desk, Darkstar growls with teeth bared and hovering dangerously above President Shinra’s ankle. Another threat. Tseng hopes that Rufus’ father feels the heat of the mutant’s mouth, the so-subtle prick of his teeth, knows that with the simplest of commands from Rufus those knife-sharp fangs will go through his skin, rend and tear. 

The President scoffs, spitting blood. It lands on Rufus’ white coat, spreading rapidly - dark as wine, a stain. Rufus sneers in distaste, shrugging off the coat and letting it fall to the ground at his father’s feet before he clambers up on the desk, crossing his legs daintily and tapping the gun on his lap as he pops another candy into his mouth. He stares down at his father, who has never been a _father_ , really, more than the genetics that made him and the means to an end.

“Do you like that, Father?” Rufus asks, leaning down to look his father in his watery eyes. “You brought him here for me, and then when you discovered what an asset he could be, you tried to take him back!” 

Rufus laughs, then, like he’s recounting the funniest story. “And he came, like a loyal dog! He came, and he fed you _just_ enough so you’d never doubt his allegiance… but he was always mine.”

President Shinra’s eyes flick to Tseng, as if he’s just realizing that he’s betrayed him. As if Tseng wasn’t the one who snuck in assassin-quiet and incapacitated him in preparation for this little performance Rufus is putting on. As if Tseng wasn’t the one who bound him to the chair. As if Tseng isn’t in perfect position to put a bullet in his head with one thought.

“I should have expected this from you,” the President says. “You don’t know anything about loyalty.”

Tseng has never once spoken back to President Shinra, and he seizes his chance like a starving man reaches for sustenance. “Oh no, sir, quite the opposite. You instilled in me a deep loyalty to Shinra,” Tseng says, finger hovering over the trigger. “You neglected to predict that it would be to Rufus.”

Rufus tips his head back and laughs, like music to Tseng’s ears. 

“You’ll be dead, and we’ll be fucking on your throne before your body is cold.”

There is something new, then, in the President’s eyes: something that Tseng has always wanted to see: _fear_. Fear is Rufus’ favorite flavor, fear is what he rules with. He leans forward in rapt fascination. Like a predator picking up a trail, he can smell his father’s terror and it excites him. 

“Yes, that’s right, you stupid old man,” Rufus taunts, tapping the barrel of his gun against his knee just to watch his father’s eyes follow it, unable to decide if he wants to watch his son’s gun or Tseng’s. “You’re going to die tonight.”

Rufus doesn’t look at his father’s face when he kills him, only sneers down at his knelt and trembling form and takes aim. Execution-style, impersonal, _efficient._ The bullet rips through his neck and throat, turning the back of his head into a mess of gore. His blood is thick as oil as it runs over the gleaming black floor.

“Take care of it,” he orders, and Tseng offers a nod, sets to work. The body, carefully covered with a tarp retrieved from the janitorial closet while he tends to the mess; the bits of gore, bits of brain matter and fractured fragments of skull picked up between latex glove-clad fingers; the blood, mopped up with rags dropped into a bucket bound for the incinerator. In the end, Tseng chooses the incinerator for the body as well. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s disposed of the Company’s dirty work with a fire hot enough to melt the hardest of metal into liquid in seconds, and it seems a fitting and impersonal resting place for the former President. 

When Tseng returns to the 69th floor, he keys in the code (numbers of what he knows to be the measurements of the secretary with whom he’d sired his youngest bastard, a not-too-private joke between himself and Heidegger that it was unfortunately Tseng’s job to know) and wonders idly what Rufus will ask for it to be changed to. One floor higher and the 70th floor is as he left it, gleaming black floors returned to an inconspicuous polish, Rufus at the center of it. A star for planets to orbit, sitting at the desk, chin in his hands. Tseng closes the door behind him, listens for the hiss of the lock and the beep of the security system. He crosses the room as he has done one hundred, one thousand times before and feels like it’s the first time, because it’s Rufus in the President’s chair. 

“Mister President,” Tseng nods, eyes not focused on the floor but on Rufus instead, on the way his pupils are dark, blown so wide they almost eclipse his ice blue irises, on the way Rufus is licking his lips, flirtatious and inviting. 

This was planned. Perfectly so. Tomorrow will be for the executives, for changes, for moving pieces where they need to be after a shakeup made them fall. Tonight, though? Tonight is theirs. Tonight is for Rufus’ hands in Tseng’s hair, yanking his head back so he can’t bury his moans into the glass desktop as he’s bent over it; for Tseng’s fingers leaving bruises, four fingers and a thumb, on Rufus’ milky calf as he lifts his leg over his shoulder, fucks into him deep. Tonight is for the sounds of their sex, their love, their ambition, their accomplishments, their _triumph_ to ring off the windows bordering three fourths of the President’s Office. 

Rufus has ascended, and all it took was the _right_ murder.

In the end, in line with Rufus’ grand design, there is a Shinra in both of the Company’s highest positions. 


End file.
